Epicurean Experience

Block 16 Food Hall at the Cosmopolitan

Hundred degree weather, long walks, two a day workouts, and one meal a day. I was in Vegas for NBA Summer League and once I left that gym it was time to enjoy as much food variety as I could possibly cram into one meal. Buffets are nice, but I am enjoying this food hall craze that seems to infiltrate more and more of the urban food scene. Whether all coherent in theme or spanning as many ethnic cuisines you could think of, I can’t think of a better environment for a foodventure. “Why not both?” can’t ring any truer for this type of setting and Block 16 at the Cosmopolitan was no exception.

The location was a modern food hall with each establishment boasting a couple seats nearby and food varying from handrolls to sandwiches. My plan was to open up with lighter foods like handrolls, and then work my way to the heavier dishes.

Tekka Bar handrolls. Toro on the left and Alaskan crab on the right.

I ordered a toro handroll and their daily special Alaskan crab. The toro was standard fare as a classic handroll, but the daily special was a little more unique. Rich tones of Japanese mayo met by clean notes of crab with hints of jalapeno. It was a solid fusion flavored roll only tempered by the fact it was thirteen dollars. A price I feel like you could find similar satisfaction at a cheaper price.

From there I had planned to visit Pok Pok Wings. It seemed to be a nice transition going from delicate, rich Japanese flavors to bolder, well rounded Southeast Asian ones. But there was a line of customers pouring in behind my time at Tekka Bar beckoning me to get a fried chicken sandwich. So Hattie B’s it was. Well at least the order was. I waited in line and, upon placing my order, retreated to Pok Pok Wings to maximize my use of time. I wasn’t on a time crunch, but I love the feeling of eating more at once. The two orders completed at nearly the same time, but my heart was set on having that sandwich first.

Hattie B’s signature hot chicken sandwich.

Overall a solid chicken sandwich. Not standout, but large and well fried with juicy chicken and a rich bun. Each component was solid. My biggest gripe would be how synonymous the flavors are. Mostly salty with some spice (I got mild) and coleslaw that was not enough to break up the pickles amplifying the salt from the chicken’s crispy batter. But most people just want a hearty chicken sandwich and this definitely delivers. This sandwich was more filling than I anticipated so I began wondering if my foodventure would get cut short as I looked wearily at the pad thai noodles waiting next to me.

This unassuming noodle dish was much better than expected. Here in the U.S., I often find Thai food abandoning the core concept of having all flavors present, but this did not make that mistake. Umami from the shrimp, fish sauce, and oils on the noodles, salt from the fish sauce, sweetness from the brown sugar, citrus from the lime, spice from the red pepper, creaminess from the crushed peanuts and eggs, with hints of green from the green onion. All well balanced flavors accented with a variety of textures as you get springiness from the noodles, crunch from the bean sprouts and peanuts, softness from the egg, and everything else in the green onion and shrimp. I can go on and on, but the point is that there are a lot of things present in a package that would lead one to think otherwise. Not perfect by any means, yet reaching beyond the pitfalls of components being too similar that I find so present in many American Thai establishments.

By this point my mind was starting to rush towards desserts. I had been eyeing some donuts on my way in, but my quest was to try as much of this food hall as possible and I didn’t feel like I earned the right to move on just yet. Although Lardo’s sandwiches had my attention, I needed something small and light to give myself the sense of accomplishment that I needed. And then in the corner I noticed China Poblano.

This was the perfect end to my savory courses as they had single orders of tacos. I settled on a taco with Yucatan-style barbecue pork seasoned by sour orange and topped with some pickled onions. Reminiscent of a carnitas taco, but much bolder given the sweet and sour nature of the dish. A relatively light and satisfying end to bring me to dessert.

Berry Cream donut from District.

Finally I arrived at the donut I’d been eyeing. The berries were tart and refreshing with a solid donut base and custard that had a nice richness and mild sweetness, but the creamy glaze on top was a little too sweet for my taste. It satisfied my craving and was well worth the price overall. Not much else to say here other than I needed some hydration by this point. Liquid takes too much space and I needed all the room possible up until this point.

Refreshing cold pressed juice from The Juice Standard

Cue the Bee Cosmopolitan from The Juice Standard. One of the most refreshingly light juices I have ever had as it felt like having good water, a palete cleansing tartness, and a subtle sweetness all in one. The standout of the night despite its thirteen dollar price tag. Then again, maybe it was just the dehydration talking. The night should have ended there if not for my indomitable desire to end meals with some form of ice cream.

Cereal milk and milk pie swirl from Milk

In theory, this was everything I wanted from my cold, meal ending treat. In practice, this was probably the worst decision of the night. Overly sweet and too literal in its interpretation for my tastes. The texture of the ice cream was decently airy, but the clawing sweetness paired with thick creaminess didn’t do much other than make me forget about the refreshing drink I had just had. I will say that it did grow on me a little as I ate it (or was it just my love milk/ice cream). Maybe it was the contrast of going from tart and refreshing to something so rich, but either way a reminder that ice cream isn’t always the answer.

Needless to say this meal filled me up. I had zero alcohol, but I felt a good food buzz going on as I stumbled my way through the busy strip to my room. Only a sweltering desert night and two miles till I earned my keep with my second workout of the day. The preparation only seemed right for the next day at Park MGM’s Eataly.

Coursed Meals

I began cooking when I was 10, but it wouldn’t be till much later in my second year of college that I took the step from making a dish here and there (although at times a giant dish for over ten people) to a full multi-course meal. After seeing people enjoy my food, I had wanted to achieve something more. Multi coursed meals seemed like the obvious progression. So one fateful night after cooking a large amount of food for a large amount of people, I proposed the concept to those who had stayed after most had left. I eventually cooked over 10 meals for this group of friends (these dinners aptly named “staff dinners”) and this style, consisting of several small highly detailed dishes, became the playground and medium for my creativity in presenting food in overarching themes. It’s here that I hope to share all the details of those experiences.

Experiments

When I first tried out cooking at 10 years old, I didn’t understand what all the hype was about. Follow some steps and the food comes out as you’d expect it. If it came out any different, then it most likely means you did something wrong. This was about all I could think about as my aunt showed me the ropes by cooking some family recipes. So after a few weeks, I got bored and stopped cooking.

Fast forward a few years and a couple Travel channel shows later, I was beginning to see food in a different light. I saw culture, creativity, and craft in all the culinary works being showcased on these television shows. So, once again, I cooked. But this time it was different. My sister had brought up the idea of cooking a whole meal. But this was no normal family meal. She had gotten the idea to cook a red wine chicken with potatoes au gratin. A meal in which I would cook the potatoes and she would cook the chicken. Not only was this something we’d never had or done before, it was completely different from all our family recipes. This meant I was starting from a blank slate. I had a recipe, but no concept of what it could or should turn out to be. The process remained largely the same, but the little details started to change. Between figuring out what I had available, what I found necessary, and the techniques I had from what my family’s knowledge was limited to, there was puzzle to be solved. Cooking wasn’t about following a recipe at that point. It was about solving that puzzle to bring to life the image of what the dish I wanted to create was. The shows had given me a window of the creativity of food from all around the world, and then the experience of making something from a lack thereof gave me the realization that there was nothing stopping me from doing the same.

An example of mentaiko version of gratin I made many years later for my first coursed meal

At this point you are probably thinking that I began cooking all the time and it became an amazing life long hobby from then on. In reality though, this dish became the only thing I cooked once every few months. After all, I was only around 16 at the time and cooking for the family sounded like a chore that got in the way of TV and video games because it would be. But it did start the groundwork for what was to come as I would later recall this experience during college. By then I had to do my own groceries, make my own food, and eat out at many establishments where I was disappointed by the lack of creativity (I remember the first time someone told me about a sushirrito and my excitement turned into disappointment when it turned out it was just a marketing ploy for a slightly larger uncut sushi roll). All this meant I ended up cooking what I wanted to eat and enjoyed blindly trying to get to what that was.

Example of what happens when I crave nachos

Now, after all these years, aspiring to satisfy my desires and creativity through cooking has served as a fun hobby. I learn from what I see and hear, but I have no regard for keeping convention for convention’s sake. I do what I want to do because it sounds like a good idea and, if it happens to turn out well, I share it with the people around me. All this has led to periods of experimentation with ingredients that you see here with those learnings later utilized in coursed meals I would create.

Ukishima Cake Style Cornbread

I have always loved the look of traditional Japanese sweets. Wagashi (和菓子, wa-gashi, lit. Japanese sweet) comes in many different shapes and colors, but even here in Southern California you’d be hard pressed to find many places to purchase these wonderful confections. One day I came across a group on meetup.com for making Wagashi a couple miles from me. Two weeks later I found myself in a home learning about and making Wagashi with three other strangers and the group coordinator. The magic of the internet.

An example of wagashi from a later meetup in that group

Our coordinator was born and raised in Japan and had pursued the hobby of Wagashi after gaining her credentials in the art of Japanese tea ceremony. She explained that there were different types of Wagashi and the one we would be making that day was a mushi mono (蒸し物) (steamed confectionery) named Ukishima cake. After giving us a quick rundown of what we would be making, we tasted some cakes that she had had prepared beforehand. The cakes were delicious particularly because steamed cakes are a rarity here and even more so that we were using a particular type of rice flour called Joshinko (上新粉). Slightly mochi like, accented with the starchiness of lima bean, a mellow sweetness, and with several layers varying on the flavor. There was a nice variety of cakes ranging from yuzu with matcha jelly, to chocolate with dates, and pumpkin spice. Afterwards, we went through the steps to make the yuzu Ukishima cake with a matcha jelly layer and each took home a couple slices of cake.

Ukishima Cake from the meetup
From left to right: pumpkin spice, chocolate, yuzu with matcha jelly

As with any time I have a new experience with food, my mind began racing thinking about what I could apply this knowledge to. The possibilities seem endless as the process was relatively simple. In essence, Ukishima cake consisted of bean paste mixed in a food processor with some white sugar, egg yolks, and Joshinko, folding in some meringue, and then steaming the resulting mixture. Looking at that process there was one thing that came to my mind immediately. Cornbread.

I replaced the beans with corn and the white sugar with brown sugar and dark amber maple syrup. Everything else remained unchanged. I pureed the corn in a food processor, cooked it on a stove with the sugars to turn it into a paste, followed the rest of the process, and steamed the mixture having no idea how it would turn out. Beans and corn seemed similar enough so that the texture would be fine. Right? Turns out that the assumption was correct and all went according to my expectations. The result was a lighter, fluffier, slightly mochi cornbread with a strong corn flavor. Success. Now on to making a more savory miso version and a sweeter dessert version.

Foodventures

I started intermittent fasting about a year ago and, if you don’t know anything about it, it typically begins with just skipping breakfast and not eating late into the night. If you like numbers, that usually ends up being 16 hours of fasting and a 8 hour eating window (a.k.a. 16/8). Now I don’t know about you, but I never really cared for eating breakfast. I just ate it because it was traditionally viewed as a necessity to a healthy life and metabolism (its old marketing propaganda from big industries during the 20th century like many other “necessities” we hear about growing up). So 16/8 intermittent fasting just sounded like skipping breakfast and that sounds like something I should have already been doing. It was then that I found out that there are levels and, being such a huge fan of games, after a month or two I felt like it was time to go to the next level. That next level was 18/6, which eventually led to 20/4 and an occasional one meal a day. Being an active male meant that I ate around 2500-2700 calories to maintain my weight and being around 165 at 5’11 meant I didn’t really want to lose to much weight. If you do the math (well actually no math at all) that means I had to eat all those calories in 4 hours. Given that I wanted to eat relatively healthy and not eat fast food everyday, meant I had to be able to eat much more volume in a shorter period of time. So that’s what I did. It didn’t cross my mind that it meant my stomach would have to expand and that expansion led to the ability to eat more than I ever could before.

A more modest meal from a grocery in Japan

The point of this is that I decided to exercise this newfound ability when venturing out to try as much food as I could. I have a lot of fun and opinions when eating a million things at once so I figured I’d keep track of these “foodventures.”

Back to “Baesics”

Back when I cooked my first coursed meal everything was just a mess of random interesting concepts. That first meal was whatever I could come up with, which always ended up being an arbitrary assortment of “Asian fusion.” Although enjoyable, I felt that after nine preparations of coursed dinners later I should be able to achieve something much greater. Thus came the goal to create a more coherent meal that transcended my brash beginnings. Design, flavor profiles, quality. Everything must be better, yet adhere to the whimsical creativity that my group of friends and I enjoyed. Coined after feelings of endearment from more humble beginnings, the theme was set, it was time to go “back to baesics.”

I originally opened with a seafood shot. It was reminiscent of what you would find in any standard fare Japanese American restaurant, but that’s exactly what I didn’t want this time around. I wanted more precision and more thought. The bottom is sea urchin with a touch of soy, followed by shiso leaf marinated in yuzu, and finished with salmon roe marinated in a dark amber maple syrup. Order matters and so does the experience as each flavor hits your palate. A rush of dull sweetness with a hint of the sea, quickly cleaned up by an herbal minty citrus, and then ending with the ever popular and ever classic sea urchin with just enough salt from sushi grade soy.

A salad was the next item to revisit. The first dinner was a straightforward take on caprese salad on a skewer with the main innovation being a balsamic hoisin as opposed to a standard balsamic. Simple and effective, but not what I was aiming for on this day. Starting from the bottom is microgreens, topped with ricotta seasoned with black pepper and cayenne, followed by a mound of raw almonds with a hint of salt, and finished with dashi marinated pears and a garnish of parsley. Again, order matters. Early sensations of earthy leaves are greeted by a rush of creaminess that are touched with moments of spice. Before the textures get boring the crunch of almonds livens everything up as it ends with a mouthful of sweet and umami only to be broken up by garnishes of parsley.

My favorite dish from that first coursed dinner was one I called “wonton curry creamed corn” served with takoyaki condiments. Super fun and would work wonders in any street fare. I wanted something that kept that level of fun, while applying some level of gourmet feeling utilizing my newfound experiences. This dish is comprised of a very rich, cheesy creamed corn seasoned with garlic, black pepper, and a hint of sugar, sprinkled with parmesan, and topped with a dollop of gochujang, green onion, parsley, and tempura fried green onion stuffed with the same cheesy creamed corn as seen on the bottom (some fun cornception going on here). Imagine the richest cream corn you have ever had, thicken it with cheese, add in notes of salt from parmesan, cut that richness with some green onion and parsley, and spread some spice throughout as you take in some gochujang. Now with all that going on, throw in some more of everything with a little texture as you take a bite of that tempura fried green onion that is stuffed with the same cheesy creamed corn.

Next up was the slider concept. I could come up with a slider a million different ways, but I wanted this one to be out there. To “push the bounds” as some might say. Definitely an amalgamation of “this sounds cool” and “this should work” as I wracked my brain with concepts and ingredients that could be “unique” and “gourmet.” I settled on eel as it is a meaty tasting fish that was the closest thing to a hardy grill flavor that most people would love on a normal slider. Then I combo’d that with bao bread, as it is relatively under represented in the slider realm (I know bao buns are a thing, but this is a slider and most definitely not a bun). The outside is butter charred bao bread filled with heavily dried eel and a lettuce/greens replacement consisting of shiso leaf. On the side is a sauce of gochujang and parsley. Think of soft bao bread with a buttery crunch followed by smokey eel, freshened up with hints of shiso and parlsey, add in a tang of spice, and you’ve nailed what its like to eat this dish.

I’ll admit this has no resemblance to the abomination (in a good way I swear) I made the first meal. I don’t know if you could draw a single similarity between this and the monster tempura fried ball of ice cream that was wrapped in brownie. This is light, simple, and yet deceptively complex as it consists of a butter wafer drizzled in truffle honey, a couple drops of yuzu, a dash of cayenne and salt, and a garnish of mint. Rich wafer meets notes of sweet umami broken up by granules of salt and touches of cayenne, while being kept fresh by mint.